FEMA using disaster models

Sun., Aug. 14, 2011

Manuel Valdes Associated Press

SEATTLE – With the disaster modeling program on his computer, project analyst Adam Campbell dials up a 7.2 earthquake for Seattle and King County.

He’s looking for how many buildings will topple, how much debris will fill the streets, making them impassable for emergency responders. He wants to know how many casualties the massive quake will produce.

“Cascadia is a scary fault,” said Campbell, a contractor for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, in what will prove to be an understatement, as he demonstrates the program to the Associated Press.

Minutes later, FEMA’s Hazus computer program churns out its hair-raising answers: billions of dollars in structural damage; area hospitals leveled; tons of debris blocking the streets, and more than 1,000 deaths and several more thousand injured.

“The data that comes out of a tool like Hazus shows our risks and what kind of impacts could occur here,” said John Schelling of the Washington Emergency Management department. “The program brings some resolution. It provides some context so people can begin to see some of the challenges following these types of disasters.”

Of particular worry to government agencies – and emergency planners like Schelling – is the 680-mile-long Cascadia fault line, which runs just 50 miles off Washington’s shore. Scientists have found that a big 8.0 to 9.0 earthquake has hit that fault line about every 500 years. The last one struck in 1700.

According to a 2005 study that used Hazus data, such a strong earthquake would level parts of the region, bringing landslides, tsunamis, fires, and spilling hazardous materials among other disastrous effects. This year, FEMA will partner with the Canadian government to do a binational model of a 9.0 earthquake hitting the Pacific Northwest, creating an updated examination of the 2005 study.

“There’s going to be impact to infrastructure, to bridges and roads that we rely on every day,” Schelling said. “It may provide another source of information that people can recognize and say, ‘I can see why I need to be prepared because there’s going to other challenges for responders to deal with.’ ”

Schelling also warned that earthquake danger is not only for Western Washington. He said an earthquake shook underneath Chelan in 1872 and emergency planners also think an earthquake can strike Spokane.

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